Some stray thoughts; mostly pop and old British television drama, bits of memoir perhaps.

Thursday, 24 February 2011

Dee D Jackson - Automatic Lover (1978/ No. 4/ 9 weeks/ Mercury)

"Programmed to receive automatic satisfaction"

Often novelty songs are a lot more profound than 'meaningful' ones. Dee D Jackson's one hit was in the same 1978 top ten as 'I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper' by Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip, and its disco-styling and that sleeve might lead you to expect something very similar; futuristic comedy soft porn.

Once you let it get under your skin, you realise that it is a creation of an altogether higher order. Thematically, it chimes with something I've been thinking about recently. According to David Levy's Love & Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, by 2050 most of us will be having sex with robots;

Love in space and timeThere's no more feelingAutomatic loverCold and unappealing

Longing to be touched...Loging for a kiss...Whisper words of love...Tell me that you miss...Meeeeeeeeeeeeee...!

I can see two problems with this hypothesis; Unless android technology gets seriously good, machines are liable to remain less comely than people (unless they're your thing, and it must surely be a pretty niche taste) and it rather precludes the idea of meaningful emotional attachment, which is what differentiates even the most callously-intentioned pick-up from masturbation;